Sonic Origins Collection - General Thread

I hope if Sega does a new collection like Sonic Origins that they ask Taxman/Stealth to do Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Spinball, Knuckles Chaotix and SegaSonic ports in the Retro engine. Or release these Retro engine ports separately.
When they are at it, even make Retro engine ports of the 8-bit Master System/Game Gear Sonic games. Maybe make it possible to switch between the Master System and Game Gear versions on the fly.

 

That'd be neat, but it took several years and projects just to RSDK-ify the 4 main Genesis games, S3&K in particular taking forever and still somehow coming out rushed. At least quadruple the workload for games that don't have a fraction of the demand to be in RSDK (maybe even from Tax/Stealth) doesn't seem incredibly likely.

 

They'd want to do Chaotix (they're literally named after one of its tracks), but nobody is really asking for the other games. There are QOL improvements you can get just from hacking the 8-bit ROMs that don't full engine recreations. Toggle lives, more screen space, rings in the boss fights and more Tails Adventure inventory is basically all you need (okay, I'd want token retries for special stages, but still). 3D Blast would take some work to get the Saturn visuals and options for the OST (not sure if you could do anything with just the Genesis ROM on those fronts) and you'd probably want a No Flickies Mode, but Spinball and Mean Bean are as good as they're going to get. Fighters already has a modern port, and if they can just drop it into Lost Judgement I don't see any reason they couldn't here. SegaSonic and R are the ones that would require some porting work.

 

I like how it sounds like Sonic Gems Collection 2.

 

also while Sonics 1, 2, CD, and 3&K were ostensibly all on the same "base" with some differences here and there, 3D Blast, Spinball, Chaotix, and SegaSonic were all by different teams (from each other; don't recall if Chaotix had a lot of people from the Genesis games) and on different engines and hardware. Also, the retro engine so far has only been used to make 2D side-scrolling Sonic games* - I can't imagine the headache it'd take to get it working for isometric titles, especially one with a very specific and unique control scheme (SegaSonic). S3&K turned out the way it did while already having a proof of concept and also while also having prior examples of the exact same gameplay already implemented (even Blue Spheres, which appeared in Mania).


*and what little 3D stuff there is of course a whole different beast from any of the four aforementioned titles.

 

Spinball and Chaotix are absolutely doable in the Retro Engine. Spinball would need more work to get the physics down, but it's doable. SegaSonic and 3D Blast I think would need it's own branch of the engine that does 3D collision (or at least do it in a way that isn't incredibly hacky)

 

If it was me? I would do Spinball with two modes. Legacy and Pinball Wizard.
Get me a stupid high frame rate and accurate pinball physics.

 

Chaotix should be offered via emulation somehow for the sake of preservation, but I really don't think it's worth rebuilding.

And this is from someone who got a 32X and Knuckles' Chaotix 10ish years ago and beat the game thereafter.

If Knuckles' Chaotix was a sandwich, it'd be two slices of amazing bread with a single slice of discount bologna in the middle.

The visuals, music, day/night cycle, and special/bonus stages are REALLY cool. I can't take that away from it. The rubber band ring-thing can be fun, but is more cumbersome than it is complex or interesting, and the fact that it's so cumbersome means the level design has to be more restricted and is just sooo boring. All the level gimmicks are just different kinds of elevators to make sure the 2 characters are together.

I think all games are worth preserving, but Chaotix is not really worth the effort of an RSDK remake unless they wanted to rework the rubber-band ring and completely redesign all the levels to make it a better game... and at that point, how about you just get rid of the weird rubber-band thing and make Mania 2 instead, right? That'd make more people happy and sell more copies.

 

now also consider Spinball, which I don't consider a good game at all. The ten diehard fans of this game on the whole planet would be mad if they changed the physics and level design to not feel terrible, but replicating it 1 to 1 on the RSDK is also just such a waste because it's terrible. Who do you satisfy - the (tiny amount of) people you're ostensibly spending a lot of time, money, and effort remaking this for, or the (far larger) number of people who might want to check it out and bounce hard off of the game?

 

Yeah, if you change Spinball's physics, you'll have to change it's level design to match those physics... so you'll end up with a very different game in the end and have to call it something like "Sonic Spinball: Redux" or something.

I don't think Spinball would benefit from a 1:1 remake anyways. The big reason 1, 2, & CD were remade was to have widescreen support. Spinball's design is mostly vertical, so it wouldn't really benefit from the extra screenspace unless it was a mobile-focused port designed to be played in portrait mode.

I'd prefer a Spinball sequel over a remake. I don't love the original, but I think it's a fairly solid pinball videogame for it's time and a new entry could be a fun spinoff.

And Sonic Pinball Party doesn't count. LOL

 

I do miss the 90's fascination with pinball games. I would also like a Sonic Spinball sequel with (more) accurate pinball physics.

 

Yeah I think I’d be open to a new Spinball which built off of the existing formula with better physics. It’s a cool game that has a lot of potential to be iterated on imho.

 

Did you guys catch that interview on VGC the other day with Takashi Iizuka and Shun Nakamura?

They were asked why the Advance series never saw a re-release outside the Wii U's Virtual Console and their answer was basically, "Gotta ask that fella (Katsuyuki Shigihara) who directed Sonic Origins."

Sonic Advance 1-3, Sonic Battle, and, well, Sonic Pinball Party would make such a nice package!

 

He basically dodged the question, because it was about re-releasing the games, not remaking them.

 

Remake? =P Before that, I'd want a Sonic Advance Returns, as in Donkey Kong Country Returns or Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. But for now, I have my eyes on the non-existing GBA collection.

 

Plus it’s just nice to have legit access to them. Even without any upgrades or anything itd be nice to be able to go through them. They’re pretty decent games in their own right, even if they’re not classics, and I think if rereleased they would hold up pretty well.

 

At the least, they should have what's now a fairly standard rewind feature. Those bottomless pits in Advance 2 and 3 were annoyingly unforgiving, to the point where it was all too easy to get a Game Over. In Advance 2s case, a Game Over was particularly damning if you were at the boss, since you'd have to go all the way back through Act 1 and 2 of the respective zone. In Advance 3s case, the hub worlds are just annoying to navigate if you're only going through them because of said Game Over.

 

Excuse me for asking here...
What's the best mod pack for the most optimal gameplay?
Ultrafix or another one?